QPR’s Beard Says Mittal’s Team Will Keep Players If Demoted

Jamie Mackie of QPR celebrates scoring the winning goal during the Barclays Premier League match between Queens Park Rangers and Liverpool at Loftus Road on March 21, 2012 in London. Photographer: Ian Walton/Getty

March 29 (Bloomberg) -- Queens Park Rangers chief executive
officer Philip Beard says the Premier League team -- part owned
by billionaire steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal and AirAsia Bhd CEO
Tony Fernandes -- will keep most of its players should the club
be relegated this season.

QPR is in danger of moving down to the second-division
Championship. With eight games left in its season, the west
London team is in the bottom three of the top English league
even after spending millions on new talent and replacing its
manager mid-season. It’s won just three games and lost seven
since Mark Hughes replaced Neil Warnock on Jan. 10.

Fernandes led a group that in August bought a majority 66
percent stake from Formula One head Bernie Ecclestone and his
partner Flavio Briatore. Since then the team’s bought eight
players including strikers Djibril Cisse and Bobby Zamora.

“We were very active in the 10 days after the takeover in
August and fairly active in January and I’ll stand behind every
single one of those contracts irrespective of what happens,”
Beard said during a discussion on team finance at the Soccerex
conference in Manchester. QPR returned to the top division this
season after 16-year absence.

“If we do not stay up, I anticipate the vast majority will
stay at QPR to try and help us get back,” he said. “We’ve gone
into this with our eyes wide open.”

Mittal is one of the world’s richest men. Unlike other
wealthy owners in the Premier League like Roman Abramovich at
Chelsea or Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nayhan of Manchester
City, QPR’s owners haven’t spent lavishly on building their
roster. Still, they’ve spent significantly more than Norwich and
Swansea, the two other teams promoted last season. Those clubs
are 14 points clear of the relegation zone after 30 games.

Stabilize

“Our aim is to find a stabilized position in the Premier
League over next few years,” Beard said.

Even though Hughes’s appointment hasn’t led to improved
performance, Beard said the team remained committed to the
former Manchester City coach.

“I don’t regret at all the decision to change manager,”
he said. “We’ve just got to focus on what we are doing and I
think in Mark Hughes we have an excellent manager.”

Part of the plan is to build new training facilities and
find a new stadium. Beard, who worked with Los Angeles-based
Anschutz Entertainment Group Inc. earlier in his career, said
he’d like to use examples learned at the Staples Center, home of
basketball’s Los Angeles Lakers and Clippers and ice hockey’s
Los Angeles Kings.

“It has to be an entertainment destination,” he said,
saying though he had a preference for teams sharing stadiums,
the competitive nature of English soccer meant it probably isn’t
an option for QPR.

“I do think there’s a platform where discussions would
take place on success and viability of ground-sharing but at the
moment that’s very emotional for football fans,” Beard said.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Tariq Panja in Manchester via the London newsroom at
tpanja@bloomberg.net